The face that launched a thousand takes… Helen and the Fall of Troy (1924), Edition Filmmuseum DVD

“As a spectacle carrying the imprint of truth and realism it would make DW Griffith sit up and consider his laurels, while the acting has never been bettered from the … leads to the tiniest small part.” Variety, 1925

Turns out a poem paints some 219 minutes on celluloid. Director Manfred Noa’s epic was released a few months before Fritz Lang’s 288-minute Die Nibelungen and yet is little remembered a century on. This is no doubt due to its being largely absent from archives until the discovery of an almost complete copy in Lausanne, Switzerland enabled this 1999 restoration including materials from archives in Rome, Madrid and Moscow. The film was a box office hit but nearly bankrupted Noa’s studio, Bavaria Film based in Munich a financial world away from UFA which was founded two years before in 1917. The company still makes films – unlike UFA – but many of its earliest efforts are lost, including Hitchcock’s The Mountain Eagle – and this film, along with Noa’s equally epic, Nathan der Wiese (1922), are two of the few survivors.

There are many beautiful shots, a cast of thousands, stunning battles scenes and a dirty great big wooden horse and yet the film kept on reminding me of the Italian epic style from ten years earlier; lots of almost static tableaux, albeit on an epic scale and with some fine montages and in-camera trickery, yet without the fluidity of Lang or other contemporaries. That said, this is an engaging film and one that pays due diligence to Homer’s source poem as adapted by Hans Kyser. The acting is perfectly attuned too as Variety noted, and is stylised to a consistent degree with the contemporary view of this ancient myth with its prefiguring of Teutonic gothic – these are people driven by ancient laws and codes of honour… and look where that gets you?

A gift from the Greeks

The film is split into to two parts Der Raub Der Helena (The Abduction/Rape of Helen) and Der Untergang Trojas (The Ruin of Troy) and scrupulously follows the twists and turns of Homer’s poem.

The holy dove of Aphrodite brings you the crown of myrtle… Oh Queen, you are the chosen one for the Festival of Adonis.

It starts off, as so many things do, on the island of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, as Adonis, god of spring, releases a dove to find the most beautiful woman in all of Greece. With all good intention, the clever bird flies to Sparta and the Island of Menelaus, the King of the Greeks, to gift the crown to Helen, his wife here played by the Italian actress, Edy Darclea, strong featured with roman nose and statuesque form. Helen is faithful to her husband and King (Friedrich Ulmer) but he’s too proud of her and wants the World to acclaim her beauty at the Festival of Aphrodite. The tale of Mr and Mrs Menelaus is the story’s beginning and end and I once saw a really visceral performance of Euripides’ play Helen at the Globe Theatre with Penny Downie as Helen and Liverpool’s Paul McGann as a battle-weary Menelaus trying to understand and reconcile with his wife after all that is still to come in Noa’s film… which, clearly, I should have watched first.

Edy Darclea and Friedrich Ulmer

Meanwhile, over on Troy, King Priam (Albert Steinrück) also seeks favours of the gods, nervously asking for guidance from the Oracle before allowing his city to celebrate the spring. High up in the hills sits a lonely goatherd  shepherd playing two flutes at the same time as he simultaneously invents prog-jazz and glam rock with a look best described as Marc Bolan meets Jethro Tull via Siouxsie Sioux’s hairdresser. It is Paris (Russian actor/exile, Vladimir Gajdarov later to feature in Michel Strogoff in 1926), who is no mere farm boy but the youngest son of Priam brought up in ignorance of his royal blood.

Things get seriously psychedelic as Paris is visited in a dream by the god Hermes who gives him a golden apple to award to the most beautiful of the three goddesses he is about to see in visions; Here “goddess of goddesses”, Athena “goddess of wisdom” and Aphrodite, “goddess of love” who offers him the love of the most beautiful woman on Earth… naturally, he gives the apple to contestant number three and our course is set: love over wisdom and glory. He resolves to journey to the festival in Troy where he will sacrifice his finest bull in tribute to Aphrodite, as, indeed, you would.

He'll toot his flute for you Helen... Vladimir Gajdarov

Meanwhile Other Gods deliver a spoiler/warning to King Menelaus, saying that if he loses the love of his Queen, all of Greece will spend years fighting to get her back. I can snark away but these tales were a way of people understanding why things happened and what caused misfortune and, whilst the gods may well have offered choices it is always Man’s folly of interpretation and judgement that leads to tragedy. In this respect, absolutely nothing has changed in terms of our need to ascribe the twists and turns of life to external forces… there almost certainly was a war involving Greece and a city like Troy – sometime between 1260 to 1180 BC, and by the time of Homer – himself a bit of a legend, either a single author or many hands - around the late eighth or early seventh century BC, these events had passed into myth and fable.

High quality visions from Manfred Noa

Back in 1924, Noa injects huge spectacle into his narrative with thousands of extras taking part of the Festival of Spring on a huge set, lavish enough to rival those of Griffith and DeMille. Paris arrives pulling his sacrificial bull only for Hera to send a cyclone to Troy outraged at having been passed over for Aphrodite… Troy’s protector, Athena, demands that Priam sends his son Hector (Carl de Vogt) to sail beyond the sea to Hera’s sanctuary yet they decide on Paris instead, angering Athena and forcing the put-upon Oracle, Aisakos (Albert Bassermann) to forecast the very worst for the King and his dynasty. More spoilers…

Meanwhile Helen, after having been afforded a glimpse of Paris from her own Oracle, heads to the Feast of Adonis on the island of Cythera where there’s even greater spectacle with a chariot race of similar scale to the following year’s Ben Hur. Here we find Achilles in the muscular form of Carlo Aldini, eventually contesting for the chance to be awarded the winners wreath by the beauteous Helen. It’s a superb set piece with camera’s mounted on chariots in a purpose-built arena around which stunt men and many horses pull round the tightest of bends. Achilles wins but the men fight over Helen but eventually agree to stand together to defend her and the honour of Greece.

Achilles pushing Menelaus hard on the outside lane...

Now that promise is going to be important as Helen, after a gratuitous bath scene, is escorted from a distraught Menelaus by Achille’s and sets off to the Island of Adonis, where she will meet the god of desire and gym clubs, who’s statue looks exactly the same as Helen’s dream man. Following shortly afterwards is Paris, who, under Aphrodite’s protection, has survived the worst that Poseidon can throw at his ship, arriving at the island just in time to meet his promised love. The two share a night of highly consensual shame, but what else can they do with the gods conspiring along with two Kings whose pride is coming well before a fall.

The island of Adonis

Anyway, Paris smuggles Helen back to Troy and he finally learns the truth of his royal heritage as he meets his brother Hector. The two witness Helen calming two lions – take that Gloria “One Lion” Swanson - clearly the Aphrodite is keen on this gal.

Kneel and kiss her robes, this woman has been granted wondrous powers!

Troy rejoices at the new arrival and King Priam believes that she has released him from the curse of the gods… and he throws Aisakos into the deepest dungeon when he begs to differ, the oracle suggesting that she will bring only death and destruction. Helen decides to stay with her new love and people after King Menelaus arrives with Agamemnon, King of the Greeks, and their troops. This leads to battle and finally Paris leads Troy to victory, the former shepherd showing a perhaps surprising level of strategic prowess and combat technique. He has won a battle but the war is only just beginning…

Paris inspired!

Part Two tells the story of the ensuing long siege of Troy as the Greeks throw everything they have at Helen’s new protectors. Within the walls, Prince Hector finds himself drawn to Helen who in her turn, reciprocates as things turn slightly sour with an increasingly disaffected and unheroic Paris. Without, Achilles and his extraordinary temper, prevent him from getting involved until his dear friend Patroclus is killed by Hector which drives him into a super heroic fury. It’s interesting how the film portrays the two men’s relationship – a very deep friendship which can easily be interpreted as a sexual one.

But even Achilles cannot swing the war on his own and some cunning is going to be required to break the deadlock. Cue the Horse!

Achilles and Menelaus allied

The film is one to relax into and retains many of the over-elaborations of the source mythology p- those gods just move in mysterious and contradictory ways. The characters are also full of conflicting emotion and this is interesting in itself, Paris doesn’t really have the heroic story arc we expect and Helen does not find him to be her one true love, returning at the end to Menelaus. The King of Sparta learns humility perhaps for letting his Queen enter the beauty pageant on Cythera whilst King Priam learns that you can’t beat fate; naturally the eventual defeat of Troy had to have a ret-conned celestial explanation.

The hyper emotionalised tale of various loves and passions would have been a natural fit for a Germany in need of understanding its own fall and also in need of vicarious shows of sexuality, love and glory. Helen’s a winner in any age in that respect.

Paris and Helen share a moment not of love but of shame?

Manfred Noa’s direction is highly competent if not original and his sense of scale is still amazing aided by his two cameramen, Ewald Daub and Gustave Preiss. It looks grand and at the end you almost feel like you’ve lived that long war with these eternal characters and you really hope that Helen and her Menelaus will head into a quieter life… for that seek out Euripides’ play.

I watched the Edition Filmmuseum double DVD set which is available direct from their site.

 Bonus eye candy!